Dog Pro Radio - Episode 15: Tyler Muto
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All right. This was a good episode, Jason.
Yeah. Yeah, Tyler. Tyler definitely brought some stuff to this one, uh, that I think people are gonna be able to use. So, uh, definitely one people are gonna wanna listen to if they’re, if they’re just starting a business or, you know, even if they’ve been in business for quite some time, he’s his perspective on, uh, a lot of different things regarding how to, how to kind of get things going and how to, how to keep ’em moving along.
It’s definitely interesting.
Yeah. What was up though with those fireworks? Did you see that on his screen? That was crazy.
No idea. I I’m, I’m, you’re running this program, so, I mean, I was, I was a little disappointed. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done like 10 10 of these now, and, and I’ve never gotten fireworks, so I mean, hey,
I’ve never had ’em either for the record, if I.
If I could control it, I would give myself fireworks and then everyone would be like, man, that’s, that guy’s smart. He gets fireworks every episode. Yeah. I have no idea how or why that happened. That was crazy.
Yeah. Pretty, pretty random. But yeah, there’s, uh, there’s a few other fireworks in here. People, people can hear if they’re only listening to it.
But if you’re watching on YouTube, which, uh, if you’re not, definitely go over and visit us on YouTube. Subscribe. You’ll, you’ll definitely see some fireworks
for sure. I think. Well, you know, as people, listen, everyone’s gonna learn something from this episode, but I really liked, and we spend a lot of time on this, but talking about truly modifying your training and being comfortable changing a board and train to get rid of some things that are maybe fluff that isn’t needed for a particular client.
And I, we, I feel like we spent 30 minutes on that, or I say we, Tyler did, but a lot of good information there. I think that even if someone doesn’t make a major change to their program. Even some minor changes where you think about putting the time in on the right place for that client and that right dog.
It’s, I think it’s gonna be helpful.
Yeah. I, I, I think that was great info. I also, you know, I really liked the advice he had for newer folks starting out and, you know, how do you, how do you tackle being new, right? How do you present that to clients? How do you approach that conversation? I thought, I thought his, uh, his advice for that was incredibly insightful.
I think if you’re, if you’re new, uh, definitely wanna listen. ’cause he had a, he had a, a lot of good information with some real good takeaways on that.
For sure. Alright, well enjoy the episode everybody. Welcome to Dog Pro Radio. Our guest today is very well known in the dog training industry. I’m guessing all of you listeners already know who he is.
Tyler is a past president of the IACP and is even in the Hall of Fame, which is pretty awesome. Tyler’s trained dogs for quite a few years, and through time he decided to pivot. And now instead of training dogs, he spends his time coaching clients and coaching new trainers through his company. Consider The Dog.
I’ll let Tyler explain what consider the dog is all about and walk you through his history. So with all of that being said, Tyler, welcome to the show. We’re excited to chat today.
Yeah, I’m happy to be here. I was super pumped when I saw you guys doing this podcast and uh, I was actually really excited to be able to get on and, and join you guys.
’cause as you know, I’m a long time supporter of the ISCP and um, I like talking, so it’s like a good fit. Um, yeah, I’m happy to be here.
You and Jason can commiserate about the work of being the president.
Yes, indeed. Yes. It’s a, it’s a bit of a thankless job at times, but, uh, it’s good to see good people taking the reins for sure.
Yeah, mark, mark Goldberg said that. Uh, you always have to remember it’s not a death sentence, so. Yeah. Or a life, or a life sentence, something like that. I can’t remember. Yeah, it shouldn’t be.
It shouldn’t be. That’s for sure. I remember actually, um, before I was president, I think I had like, just joined the board and, um, I went to, it was the first time that the monks of New Skit did like their, it wasn’t the workshops they’re doing now with Mark.
It was like they did this thing where they kinda like allowed trainers to come for a weekend and it was just, it wasn’t really a dog training seminar, it was just sort of like, check out the monastery, learn about what we do have dinner with us. It was, it was really cool and Mark was there. Um, and it was my very first in-person board meeting.
I got thrown in as like, okay, now you’re vice president. And I’m like, what? I don’t even know what that means. Um, and then I could tell already, so, uh, Karen Laws came in as president at that point as well. Chad was the previous one and the whole. Time we were there at the monks, like all Karen and Mark were talking about was like how hard being president is, and then like out the other side of their mouth, they were very clearly trying to like, nurture me to like be the next president.
And I’m like, guys, like you are not, you are not selling this. So like you are not making this sound appealing at all. But, uh, then I, next thing I knew I was precedent. So that’s the way it goes.
It does, it does happen that way sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.
Gotta be better at saying no, I guess I, you know, yeah. I, I I really got arm twisted into it actually.
I was, I was VP for a super long time. Um, I had no interest in being president. And then, um, James Ham, who was the, the president at the time, he, he had a medical condition and he had to step down. And it was like, we were in the middle of a conference when this happened. Um, he had to step down like days before the conference started and I.
Uh, I remember like just all these like, sort of like back hallway meetings with people like Jack Clark and Martin Deley, and they’re all like, Tyler, like, we need you. You’ve gotta do this. And I’m like, I don’t know. Got like, I really was like kicking and screaming and humming and hawing, but they finally like twisted my arm and off into, into doing it.
And I’m glad they did. I mean, it was, it was a good experience and, um, uh, I, I was able to make connections with a lot of, of great people and, um, yeah, I’m proud of, proud of the work I did while I was there. We had a really good board. I had a really good team that I was with, so I can’t fully take credit for some of the changes that we made happen, but I’m, I’m proud of what we did make happen.
Awesome. Well thank you of course from everyone for all you have done over the years and I’m sure we’ll continue to do for the industry. Definitely appreciate it. Yeah, man. Of course. Alright, well we’ve, you know, we chatted before we started. I, there’s so many things we would love to talk about today, but do you wanna start by just walking us through.
Kinda what, I guess a little bit of your journey and then what it is you’re doing now, and then we can probably dive in to that.
Yeah, for sure. So, um, I’ve been training dogs since the early two thousands and, um, you know, started out apprenticing under somebody else and eventually started my own business.
It grew a lot faster than I ever sort of imagined. Um, eventually bought a facility, had a pretty large team working for me. Um, and kind of over time really was enjoying more and more and more the coaching aspect of it. So even within my own business, um, I was stepping out of the day-to-day role for, you know, many years of it where my job was to coach my team, was to ensure best practices, make sure everybody was sort of meeting a good standard, um, be there to answer questions or to help with the really challenging cases.
But I wasn’t the one doing the private lessons. I wasn’t the one training the board and train dogs. I was there in sort of an oversight. Capacity and a mentoring capacity. And as that developed, I also, in 2018, um, I, I was at that point, starting in 2009, I started getting asked to do seminars. I was traveling a ton.
Um, my kids were born, my son in 2015, he was the first. So by 2018, I was like really getting tired of traveling. I wanted to be home more. And that’s when I started to consider the dog, which is essentially, um, a digital platform. You know, we, we produce and distribute online courses on dog behavior. And that was for me, I wanted to step back from doing seminars.
And I really wasn’t enjoying doing like the shadow program thing anymore, and having people like, follow me around all day. I’m, I’m kind of a, like a hermit type of guy. Um, and so it was like, I, I, I still wanted to be able to, you know, share all the knowledge I’ve gained over the years and, and have some influence in the industry without, I.
Being away from home and being away from my family. So that’s what I started to consider the dog. And I didn’t want it to be like the Tyler Muo show. Um, one thing I, I’m really kind of big on is like, man, there’s so many ways you can go about this. And there’s some things that for me are like, definitely like no-nos or like clearly wrong, but there’s a lot of Right, right.
There’s a lot of different right ways to go about it. And so my way’s not the only way and some people are gonna not really vibe well with my teaching style or my training style. And so I wanted the platform to be more than me. And so I reached out to a bunch of my friends, um, who were well known dog trainers around the country and some in Canada, and said, Hey, like, do you wanna be part of this thing?
And so consider the dog as myself. And we have about 10 other instructors at this point, and. It’s a good variety of different training styles. We have some people that lean much more heavily towards, you know, the reward only side of things. Um, some people that are like almost all eco for instance. And the idea was like, I want, I want dog owners to be able to come, be able to get a taste of the different trainers, find who seems to match what they’re looking for the best, and then have the resources to continue forward with that.
And also to ask questions and get feedback. Um, and so that’s considered the dog. And then, yeah, in, uh, kind of post COVID. Actually right before COVID, I was already looking into, um, selling my training center and really focusing at that point, um, solely on coaching professionals because that’s what I was doing and that’s what I enjoyed doing.
Um, and where I felt like I could, um. Share the most value, right? I, I’ve had so many unique experiences in this industry, not only from my own work, but also from the time with the IACP where I’m sure Jason, you know, you get this like bird’s eye view of the industry that’s really unique and I don’t get to, I, I don’t get to share that value.
When I was just working with dog owners, um, and I was spending honestly like pretty, like not that much time involved in the training center at that point. I had a general manager named Amy, who was amazing, who was really like running the place. Um, I had good trainers on my team. And so it just made sense to start looking into like, okay, what is the exit plan look like here?
And I was looking into selling and then COVID hit, um, and then post COVID, uh, an opportunity landed where somebody was interested in, in taking over the business. And so that’s what happened. I sold the business, um, maintained the property. I still own the property. I’ve still. Pop in there. Actually I’m gonna be down there in a couple weeks, um, doing some coaching with the team down there, um, and, uh, and then focus kind of more of my time on coaching.
So I do consider the dog, consider the dog is about, it’s like, it’s like 50 50, um, dog owners and then a, a huge portion of our demographic, our professionals, dog trainers. And actually our, our project for this year is we’re starting to launch courses that are specifically for professionals. Some of ’em are gonna tackle like the business end.
We actually just launched a course on marketing for dog trainers with Karen Wright. Um, I’ve got one coming out with, um, a new instructor that’s gonna be announced, uh, in the next couple days. That’s all about different, um, games you can use for your group classes. And so we’re gonna be launching actually a professional tier of membership, um, for access to, to those courses.
Um, and I’m gonna be moving a portion of my professional coaching business. Over to that. So right now my, my coaching and consulting is sort of separate from Consider the Dog. Um, it’s just like I have like, you know, tyler muto.com. It’s like all my coaching stuff. And I do have, part of that is like a subscription, like a forum kind of community aspect.
But that’s gonna be migrating over to consider the dog as part of this professional level membership where we’ll have not only the coaching involved, the group coaching involved, um, but also, you know, actual courses on things that are not relevant for dog owners per se, but very relevant for people who are working in the dog training industry.
Whether it’s, again, marketing, whether it’s running your programs, dealing with, you know, challenging clients, um, building really functional and, and high performing websites. We, we’ve got a whole bunch of stuff in the cooker that’s gonna be coming out there.
Yeah, that sounds awesome. So, Tyler, you mentioned a minute ago that being when you were the president of the IACP gave you kind of a bird’s eye view of the industry and then now what you’re doing, I would assume also gives you kind of a bird’s eye view of the industry.
Yeah. What do you think the industry overall is doing right and doing wrong right now?
You know, I think there’s a lot I, I think there’s more that the industry is doing right, right now. I do see, I mean, comparative to when I started. You know, where things were like really polarized, like really rare.
People think it’s bad now, like it was way worse. Um, I do see a lot more dialogue happening between like the different, you know, quote camps of dog training. There’s, there is a lot more openness. Um, a lot of, I think particularly the influential people on either side are expressing a more openness to communicate and to say like, this isn’t all like a black and white kind of thing.
Of course that’s not entirely, there are some folks out there that will remain unnamed that are still very polarizing. But it used to be that all the big name people were like this or that. And now you’re seeing more folks that are like, Hey, like, you know, yes, we prefer to do things this way, but that doesn’t mean that everybody else is evil.
Or that doesn’t mean that we don’t have things to learn from each other, or that we can’t have respectful and constructive dialogues with each other. And I think that’s really a, a step in the right direction. Um, not only for dogs, it’s gonna lead to better outcomes for dogs, but also for the clients and also for us as professionals.
Just a, a more. Um, welcoming environment or a, a less kind of toxic environment. There’s definitely a bit of toxicity in this industry at times. Um, I think as far as what’s going on wrong, I don’t know. Um, I think there are definitely like some, so some things that are just challenging about, about dog training, I guess.
Not so much things that are going wrong, but, um, I think there are weird gaps in education. Uh, I think more than anything, and it’s not anybody’s fault that anybody’s doing anything wrong, it’s just, it’s tough. I mean, one thing that I think has always been appealing about dog training for a lot of folks, and certainly was the, like I benefited from this, was that it was a low barrier to entry career.
You know, like you could, like for myself. My, my upfront risk was that I spent several days a week basically working for free so I could apprentice under an experienced dog trainer and learn the ropes For other people, it’s a vocational school, but you’re spending maybe $10,000, maybe more, um, as opposed to like a whole lot more than that, you know, to, to go to college and, and maybe a few months of your time, and then you’re coming into the industry.
But the problem with that is, you know, anybody who’s doing this for a long time knows, like there’s a sort of like a bare minimum where like you can get out there and you can start helping some folks, but it really takes a long time and a lot of experience before you really understand the nuances. And, um, I think due to that, there’s just not really any, I, there’s very few educational programs out there that are gonna give people like the full picture.
And I don’t know that there ever will. And again, it’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just there’s a certain amount of experience required. Um, certain amount of time with just your hands on a leash and boots on the ground to kind of gain these things. So there’s the like formal education you get and then there’s just the, like, the experience that you get in.
Um, and there’s not a lot of options for people to like, help bridge those gaps. That’s a lot of what I try to do. And there are, you know, several other folks in the space that offer coaching and mentoring, you know, in a similar fashion. I think it’s a lot of what we’re trying to do with Consider the Dog is have a really, I mean, we have thousands of hours of recorded content on there at a very, very low cost for people.
It’s a $20 a month membership, you know, so, um, it really gives people a lot of access to a lot of information, um, with, again, just it’s, it’s very accessible for folks. Um, so yeah, I, I don’t know. That’s stuff that’s, that’s going wrong. I just, I talk to so many dog trainers, um, not, not just new folks, but even just experienced folks that are looking for help.
Um, and I do see like, there’s just certain things that it’s like. In their formal education. There’s just things that are just never being taught, I guess, is, uh, I know that sounds really vague, I guess that’s not really a great answer, but it’s, it’s sort of the best I got right now.
Yeah. And then, oh, go ahead, Jason.
Sorry. Yeah, we, we, as you may know, we run a school, so we get, we get young folks coming in, new folks coming in, and um, you know, one of the things I consistently find myself telling them is unfortunately there is no substitute for experience. Yeah. I mean, you, you can’t get 10 years of experience in a six month program.
You can’t get Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s just going to take some time. You’re gonna have to, uh, sort of put yourself out there on some level. Uh, you’re gonna make mistakes, but you’re gonna get a lot of it. Right. So, um, you know, you can’t teach all those nuanced things in an academic setting. Uh, yeah,
yeah. In a short period of time.
Yeah. It’s just not the kind of
thing where somebody’s gonna go for. You know, like right now, I mean, if you want any other, like, major career, I mean, even a bachelor degree these days is basically a, a glorified high school diploma. So you’re looking at, you know, grad school, you’re looking at minimum six years of education and you’re just not gonna see anybody go and be like, I’m gonna spend six years learning how to train dogs before I hit the workforce.
Like, it’s just not gonna happen. Um, the only way to do that though is to go and work for somebody else. Uh, I mean, that’s the, the one way to do it. Um, but it just sort of depends. Then you know, who you get to work for and, and that kind of stuff. But, uh, yeah, so yeah, like I said, it’s not anything wrong.
It’s just, I think that’s one of the challenges of the industry is there’s, I mean, dogs are complex and the, the training of the dog is complex enough in itself. And then when you get into. The dynamic relationships between the dogs and the owners. And then it gets even more complex and more nuanced, and there’s more unique situations that you can encounter.
And the only way you’re going to get through that is to just be actually doing it. So I guess the only thing that I would say is wrong is that there are, I think some folks out there or programs out there that, you know, they’re relatively truncated, um, educational experiences, and then they’re like, they’re really pushing this.
Like, yeah, and you can get out there and train any dog and solve any problem and like, kind of really like inflating people up to go out there. And, um, I think there’s some, there’s a lot of risk involved in that. Um, I think you can do some, some harm sometimes with that. Um, that’s not what I’ve seen, for instance, coming out of Highland.
But you know, like there’s some programs that’s like literally like three, three to six weeks and then they’re really just kind of push people out. Like, yeah, you literally solve any problem and really push these like. Very, very pushy marketing kind of things. And I think that’s not doing anybody any favors.
It’s not doing the trainer any favors for their long-term, um, development. It’s certainly not, um, good for the dogs out there. I know I, I made a lot of mistakes early in my career. Um, so, and, and probably not good for the industry overall. Certainly not good for us as balanced dog trainers, um, especially ’cause I see more of that kind of thing, honestly, you know, unfortunately coming out of more balanced type programs.
Um, and again, I’m not gonna name any specific names or, you know, institutions. Um, and it just kind of adds fodder, you know, to the, to the fire there. And I think anybody who’s got a level head kind of recognizes that anyway. Like I’m, I’m probably mostly preaching to the choir here, but, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s probably the only thing that I think could be, can be a little bit harmful these days.
And that kinda stems from what you said earlier, the low barrier to entry, which yeah. It, you know, it kind of is because I mean, I see that on both sides. You just see the crappy balance trainers who have no idea what they’re doing, but then you also see, and it’s just a different risk, but I see the, you know, true, like they’re really purely positive that are giving advice that sounds so nice, that’s gonna get either someone seriously injured or a dog, you know, euthanized.
Right. Because it’s not being fixed. Right. But they’re being filled this Yeah, for sure. This feel good product of just do this and if you treat ’em with compassion, everything’s gonna be good. And then you realize it’s, this dog’s a legitimate danger and they just don’t know how to recognize that or fix it.
Yeah, I, it’s definitely, definitely goes both ways. And I think, you know, I’m not against the low barrier to entry. I, I think as long as people approach it, I have, I have, um, several trainers I’m working with right now that are very green and, um, you know, just didn’t have the opportunities like, you know, one of ’em actually has a college degree in, in.
Uh, that focused on animal behavior. But as you know, like the academic animal behavior is very different from dog training. Um, but he, he, he knows his limitations and so he’s kind of, he was like, you know, what do I gotta do to get started? I’m like, listen, man, like you gotta just start, you gotta start working dogs at whatever capacity that is.
But he’s not charging through the roof. He’s not taking man eating kind of crazy dogs. He’s being very upfront about his experience level, um, and, and how he can help clients. And I think that’s great. I think if you approach it well, I think the low barrier to entry is not, is not problematic. Um, you know, and I will say very openly, like I was one of those guys when I first started, I was in my early twenties and I was really bold and I was with very little experience one of these guys that was like, I’ll take any dog.
I’ll take the nastiest, like cra like that’s, I built, I literally built my reputation on that. Um. But I have the scars to like show for it. And I remember back then when I was young, it was like the scars were like a badge of honor. Like, oh yeah,
I just got nailed. And
now it’s like, not like maybe only one or two of these like should actually even be there, you know what I mean?
Most of ’em were like, that could have easily been prevented if I, if I took things slower, um, knew what I was doing was had less ego involved, less pride involved, so on and so forth. So yeah, I think, you know, I think it’s fine. I, I think it’s fine for trainers to, to not have a ton of experience, but to recognize that the only way they’re gonna get experience is to start taking on some clients, but they’ve just gotta have the right attitude about it.
Um, and to be very, very clear, I work with a ton of trainers who are in that boat and do have the right attitude. So it’s not like this is like a. Uh, an epidemic of like, you know, new dog trainers out there being too bold. Like no, there’s, you know what, I, I work with so many great people, so many great up and coming dog trainers and I, I, it makes me feel really optimistic about the industry.
Um, the newer trainers that I’m working with are really open-minded, um, you know, really trying to approach this thing the right way.
So, so to that point, I, I got a quick question ’cause I, I get this question a lot and it sounds like you may, um, you may, sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of newer folks in the industry, so I’m not sure if you get this question, but if you do, I’m kind of curious what your response is.
And that’s for a lot of these, you know, newer folks who don’t have a ton of experience, you know, they’re oftentimes it seems like really nervous or on some level afraid of, you know, approaching or taking on new clients. And, and being honest about what their experience level is. They’re like, so, you know, what do I tell people?
I’m, I’m, I’m new at this, I’ve only been doing this six months or seven months, or even less than a year. What do, what do I say to people? Uh, so kind of curious what your thoughts on, on, or what your advice is to those people about how to answer that. Yeah.
Uh, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start with a brief, uh, a brief story and then I’ll, and I’ll answer your question.
So the story is, and my friends laugh at me these days ’cause I don’t, I don’t actually own a pair of khaki pants or a polo shirt, but when I first started out, I was young and very inexperienced. Um, and I was so insecure about that, that I used to, like, I would show up at clients’ homes with like, literally like a pair of like clean dockers and a tucked in polo.
Like, I, I really felt like I had to make myself look like super, like I, I had a big bushy beard. I shaved my beard off. I would like, I used to have like bigger earrings and I like took those out. I was so insecure about it that I like wore clothes. Like I was a skater kid. Like I’ve never. In my life would’ve like been caught dead in like a tucked in polo shirt in my life.
You know what I mean? But here I am going around looking like that. It was all based outta that same fear and insecurity. What I would say is this is, um, you know, one thing, so I I help a lot of dog trainers with their, with their sales too, right? So I, I do a little bit of everything. I’m helping people with their training practices and just being better trainers, but also with their businesses and their marketing and their sales and the operations.
And one thing I say all the time is in this industry, honesty and humility is, are actually like great sales techniques because people are entrusting us with their loved one, right? People, I mean, these are their dogs, they’re their family members. And when you’re really honest with folks, it just builds that trust and rapport more.
Um, and so I think once you get used to like, like it’s the first time’s the hardest, right? But once you go out there and you meet with a client, like, Hey, look at this is the, this is the situation. Like, here’s. Here’s what I have to offer. Here’s the, the, the amount of experience I have dealing with this.
You’re gonna find that most people are gonna be like, great, let’s do it. You know, I remember a number of cases where, not super early in my career, but where I, I, I’d had somebody bring me a dog for an evaluation that was like really, really wonky. Like a really tricky case. And I would just say, you know, Hey, look, like I’m not a hundred percent sure, like, I don’t know what the outcome of this is gonna be.
Uh, you know, it might be a coin toss. Here, here are my ideas. Here are the things that I’d like to try and why. And what I can promise you is that I’ll give it my all. And in almost every single one of those cases that I can remember, those folks signed up for my largest program that I offered. Right? And so, again, there are some.
Programs out there that focus a lot on like the sales and the marketing. And it’s like really like, we’ll solve any problem, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I think, you know, that might work well for some folks, but there are a lot of dog owners that they see through that it’s distasteful to them. They don’t want that, they don’t want that like salesman feeling.
They want somebody that they can trust. Even if, you know, that person might be less experienced, they just wanna be able to trust them. And the other story I’ll tell about this is just from my personal experience. So a lot of folks know those who know me well, know this, those who don’t, may not. But aside from what I do in the dog space these days, my other sort of vocation at this point is I’m involved in the financial world.
Um, I got involved in the stock market back in the 20 teens. Um. During COVID got really heavily involved. Then only more so once I sold my business, ’cause I had more time on my hands. So I’m a day trader. I spend several hours of my day every day trading in the futures and commodities markets. Um, and I have a mentor and I’ve done a lot of like online courses throughout the years.
The people. And, and in my experience, one thing that I’ve found is the people that are really big, like people with tons of experience sometimes where like their businesses are thriving, they’re really well off when you do their educational programs, they actually, like, they’re putting less effort into it, right?
Like they’re so comfortable with what they’re doing and where they’re at. Like they’re not really pushing that hard. And sometimes like, um, I remember a situation where there was one day Trader that I was really watching, and he was a young guy, but he was doing well and he was open about who he learned from, right?
And they both had online courses and I’m like, I’m gonna go with the Young guys course because I guarantee he tried harder. Like, I guarantee he tried harder to put together like a really, really good course versus the guy who’s like really well established and probably doesn’t feel like he has to try that hard anymore.
So, yeah, I, I think moral of the story is like, don’t assume that being younger or being newer is necessarily like that. Somebody’s gonna always choose somebody more experienced over you. I think what you wanna do is be open, demonstrate that you’re gonna give things your all, um, you know, again, be honest and be trustworthy with people.
Those are the things that, that matter often the most. Um, and you’re gonna do just fine and, and charge accordingly, right? Like the person with tons of experience, maybe they’re charging a little bit more than you and you’re able to charge less, but you’re honest about why. Um, and those people go, you know what, yeah, I’m gonna give this person a shot.
I like them. I trust them. All sounds good. They have availability. The price is right. Cool. Cool, right? Like, you, you have to start somewhere. You know, you have to start somewhere. So I, I certainly would not let that be a roadblock to getting started. And I think the, the, the big thing is just like, just get comfortable.
Just get comfortable with the conversation and it all goes pretty, pretty darn smooth from there. Um, you know, one thing that I think really helps that comes up a lot in my coaching is I see a lot of trainers, especially trainers who haven’t had any guidance when it comes to like, okay, how to handle that first contact between them and the customer, whether that’s a phone call or whether that’s like a free evaluation or whatever.
So a lot of folks kind of go into these things, um, and again, they’re just sort of winging it, which is fine, you know, they’re just sort of going with the flow. Um, but that can also be the source of a lot of anxiety, like. Going into that meeting, right? Like you pull up in your car, you’re sitting outside the person’s house, and you have these little butterflies in your stomach.
And so one thing that I like to do with trainers and anybody can do this for themselves honestly, is we sort of put together a framework of how that meeting is supposed to go. What are the things I need to touch on and in what order? Like the order actually matters for a lot of these things. Um, and you know, we kind of know like at what point are we gonna talk about our, the, the programs and the pricing?
At what point are we gonna talk about our, our thoughts on this matter? Um, and I don’t think you necessarily have to be like, Hey, I’m totally inexperienced with this. But, um, you also don’t have to walk in and, and act like, or, you know, be dishonest about how much experience you do have either, you know, um, you can be totally honest about how many times you’ve seen a type of thing.
Like I said, those few clients I can think of where I’m like, I’ve never, I’ve never seen a case quite like this, but here are my thoughts. It could be totally honest about that, and that’s perfectly fine. You know, if somebody says, Hey, have you ever trained this breed before? And you haven’t be honest about, it’s no.
Like, honestly, no. But, but here are my thoughts on, on how I would approach this, what considerations I would take based on the dog’s type or breed or whatnot. ’cause obviously that’s important to the customer. Um, even if, you know, in the back of your mind you’re going like, it’s, it’s a dog, right? Like, it doesn’t, doesn’t matter based on what their goals are.
Um, you know, sometimes breed does matter. I don’t wanna make it sound like it never does. Um, but, uh, I think just get comfortable with honesty. And I think you’ll find it’s a, it’s actually a selling point. It’s actually a strength. Um, and some of your competitors may not be as forthright and not as, um, humble about it.
And there are just a lot of customers that are gonna gravitate towards that kind of humility.
Yeah. I’m glad you bring that up. ’cause I deal with. Quite a few folks who are newer who, um, it’s, it really seems like they’re scared to death, that they’re gonna show up at somebody’s house for an evaluation or a first lesson and they’re gonna be presented with a problem and they’re not immediately gonna have this 100% solution to it.
I think that’s, yeah, that’s what scares some of these folks to death.
And, you know, that’s so natural. I actually remember, um, so when I first, it was like I was still pretty green when I first started getting asked to do seminars. And the only reason I even said yes was one of my early mentors, Bart Bellen, um, he said to me at one point, he said, if anybody ever asks you to do a seminar, say yes because you’re gonna learn a lot.
That was, that was what he said. And so I was like, okay, I’ll do it. And the first one was a rescue organization that was down in New England, and um, they asked me if I could come down and do a seminar. And it was nice because it was a rescue. So I was like, yeah, you know what? I was like, I’ll do it. I’m not gonna charge you any fee if you can just cover my travel expenses.
I’m gonna drive. So just reimburse me for my gas and I’m gonna need a hotel room for the night. And if you can cover those things, I’ll come down. And I actually, um, I went down a little bit early. I had a friend down there who’s a dog trainer. I slept on his couch for a couple days and I did this seminar and it was a great experience.
Um, and I remember, you know, even for several years when I first started doing seminars, I mean, at one point I was doing a seminar at like once a month. Um, and I, I had this like compulsive thing where any question that was asked, I, I had to have an answer for it. Like, I had to, I had to have some sort of response, some sort of solution, um, on the spot.
And it was, it was really stressful. And I still remember the very first seminar I was in LA where I, I don’t know what it was, but somebody asked a question and I just paused and I was like, you know what? It’s a really good question. I don’t know the answer. Here are my thoughts. Um, and it’s, it’s worth looking into here’s how I might go into looking into it.
And I just remember like how great that felt. Like, it felt so liberating. It was like this massive weight off my shoulders. Um, so yeah, I think it’s a really natural feeling. I don’t think anybody should beat themselves up over having that feeling. But I think knowing that it’s natural and knowing that everybody deals with it, and also knowing that like it’s really okay to just say, I don’t know.
Like it’s, it’s really okay. And sometimes it’s actually better to just say, I don’t know. Um, but, but, but I’ll look into it or Here are my thoughts, or whatever it is. Um, that’s, that’s really okay. And at the end of the day, what’s the worst that’s gonna happen? And one thing that I, I talk about a lot and you know, I always say this, but um, like day trading has, it is like, it’s.
It’s one of the most powerful pathways of like self-discovery and improvement I’ve ever experienced in my life. ’cause it’s gonna expose all your demons and put ’em through a loudspeaker right back in your face. Um, but one thing that, that I’ve learned through some, some people that I, I learned from in that space is, um, there’s a difference between risk and uncertainty, but our brains, right?
Our brains process those experiences in almost the same way. So emotionally we have almost the same visceral response to risk, to like real risk as we do to uncertainty. And so one thing that we wanna do a lot of times is we wanna actually pause and go, Hey, is this a risk situation or is this an uncertainty situation?
If there are risks, like a, I wanna, I wanna know what risks are out there. I wanna mitigate any that can be mitigated and then accept the ones I. You know, like, am I willing to accept this risk? Yes or no? And if the answer is yes, then great, then accept it and then move on. And then the rest of it, if it’s uncertainty again, can I shed light on this?
Can I remove any of this uncertainty? If yes, then great. If no, then like, again, I just gotta sort of move on from here. And I think a lot of times in, I see dog trainers, especially when it comes to their businesses, unfortunately, making decisions due to uncertainty as if it were actual risk. And those are almost always the wrong decisions to make.
And so in this kind of scenario, you’re walking into this client’s home, you go, what’s the actual risk here? What’s the actual risk of like, if this person says, Hey, my dog’s got this crazy scenario, and that you like, you’re like, I don’t, I have no freaking idea. Like, what’s the actual risk there? The risk is that that client doesn’t hire you.
Like, okay, you’re not losing money. Like, it’s not like they’re taking money out of your pocket, like the risk. And that’s like. If you didn’t walk in there, you, they also wouldn’t hire you. So what’s the problem, right? It’s like that old Michael Jordan quote, you, uh, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, right?
And so a likely, a lot of what they’re feeling is just uncertainty, right? Like, I don’t know what the outcome would be. I don’t know what I’m walking into. I don’t know what’s gonna be presented to me in here. And that’s okay, but you’re only gonna shed light on that by actually going through it. And again, is there anything, okay, I’m feeling this all the time.
Well, maybe I need to ask some additional questions before these meetings. So I, I, I have a better sense of walking know, um, like some of that could be handled through, through prep work, but some of it’s just, it’s just a feeling of uncertainty. But again, emotionally we react the same to uncertainty as risk.
And so that trainer might be hesitant or, um, holding themselves back, but there’s no actual risk there at all, right? It’s just feelings of uncertainty. You know, now again, some risks are real, right? So if you’re not asking the right questions, I remember actually one of my very first, very first clients I took on, on my own.
Um, I was working at a vet hospital when I first moved to Buffalo. I didn’t know anybody here. I got a job at a vet hospital, I, as a vet assistant, and I was able to start getting some, some clients just through connections I made there. And these people had this, this German shepherd. And I walked into their house and I had no guidance.
Like when I was doing my apprenticeship, I was never even present for private lessons. All I did was go in and work the dogs in the kennel. Like there would just be a list of like the dogs that were there and sort of what they wanted work on, and I would just go start working ’em. Um, so I didn’t know what to do if you’re gonna go to a client’s house or what you should ask or how you should be prepared.
Like I was completely winging it. And I walked into these people’s house and they had this German shepherd that had aggression issues. And here I am, like bold and you know, cocky. And I’m walking in, no, you don’t need a muzzle, da da da. This dog walks up, sniffs my hand and just clamps right down on it.
Right? So like that’s a situation where like, okay, there’s real risk there. And lesson learned, like there are easy ways to mitigate that kind of risk, right? But that’s different than what we’re talking about here. And luckily now, like there weren’t, this was man, like when I first started out, like social media didn’t exist back then.
Online courses didn’t exist. Seminars were like once in a blue moon, if ever at all in the pet dog industry. You would see seminars for like sport folks. But like, there was almost like Chad Mackin was like the only guy doing like regular seminars in the pet dog industry. He was doing his pack to basic stuff.
Um, and so, and like Mark Goldberg and Martin Deley were doing some of their eco stuff early on back then, but it wasn’t frequent. And you’re lucky if it came anywhere near you. Um, so there just wasn’t any guidance. Now there’s information everywhere about, about, you know, how to prepare for these things.
So I’m super envious of trainers these days. I work with trainers that have been doing this for like two years that are at a level that took me like six years to get to just ’cause of the abundance of information that’s out there. Um, but yeah, that’s kind of my thing there is I, I think, I think when you can pause, you can go, Hey, am I feeling this way because of risk, or am I just feeling this way because of uncertainty?
Um, and then once you can recognize it as uncertainty, you just go, okay, like I just need to swallow it and go. Um, and one last story about this, just a a quick, a quick little funny story. I remember one time I went hiking with a friend of mine to this area that was known for having bear caves and I had never been there before.
I’d never seen a bear cave before. And so there’s one of these caves and it’s like dark inside. He’s like, dude, you should go in there. And I was like, terrified. Like really terrified. I’m like, I don’t know man. Like really, really scared. And this was before everybody had like flashlights on their cell phones and stuff.
And then I went in and once my eyes adjusted, the cave was only like two and a half feet deep. It was just like an El Cove. And there’s just like, you know, graffiti on the, like there was nothing in there. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like a deep dark cave, right? So I had all this fear because I didn’t know what was there.
Once I knew what was there, the fear was gone. Right? So that’s a perfect example of like, there was no actual risk, but there was this uncertainty and my body was reacting to the uncertainty. And if I could have just shown a flashlight in there and removed that uncertainty, it all would’ve gone away.
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National canine graduates have created profitable and rewarding careers in all 50 states and in more than 50 countries and territories around the world. We invite you to explore what National Canine has to offer. Please visit www.nknine.com for more information. And now back to the show. I think one of the biggest things here is you have to know yourself because that guides so much of this because what you two have both mentioned, I mean there’s like, there’s separate ends opposite ends of the spectrum here, right?
There’s people that are overconfident and people that don’t have enough confidence. And you have to know who you are before you start figuring out how you know how to fix that. And you know, we train all of our trainers in-house and when I’m mentoring one of them or talking to one of them, I wanna know what makes them tick first.
Because the person who’s going into a house call and they’re nervous because. They’re like, what if they see that my manager’s a better trainer than me, or whatever. Someone else is better. The advice to them is way different than that new trainer who’s like, I will do literally anything. I don’t care what the dog’s like.
I’m gonna figure that out. And you have to, you have to give them different advice, right? And I’m sure you do that, Tyler, in, in your, in your mentoring, because the person who has no confidence, they need to be told you’ve only been at this six months, but you’ve trained more dogs than literally every person in that neighborhood put together.
Right? You have more experience than them and their entire family put together. But the person that’s overconfident, you need to explain to them about your German Shepherd story, right? Yeah. And all these different things of you need to make smart decisions. So I I, how do you handle that, I guess would be a question in your mentoring, do you spend time getting to know the person and they tell you kind of their fears or their worries and you help modify your advice based upon that?
Yeah, I mean, virtually all the, the coaching that I do is one-on-one for that reason. Um, I mean, one thing I learned running my training center because I had no management experience or business experience when I, when I started expanding into like a fully fledged, you know, facility like that and taking on employees, and in the beginning I, I tried to turn everybody into like, little clones of myself and I mean, it was fine.
Like, like we, we still had good results and whatnot. But, um, it wasn’t until I really kinda let go of that and I recognized that like, everybody that works for me is different. They’re gonna approach problems differently. They’re gonna relate to the clients differently. Um, their first lesson might look different than my first lesson, and as long as they’re kind of like, you know, A, they’re getting the results that we’re known for, b they’re, they’re kind of operating within our overall values, um, et cetera.
Like, that’s kinda the most important thing. And it wasn’t until I let them sort of be who they uniquely are. That things were not just okay, but really great, right? Like everybody was developing into great dog trainers. And so what I, what I pride myself on in my coaching is this isn’t a one size fits all thing, right?
So this isn’t like a, Hey, come learn my program for how to run your business. Where if you do this model, you’re gonna make, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars or my special Tyler Muto dog training system where it’s this proprietary method and it’s the best method. Like that’s just not the way I operate.
So it absolutely starts out with like, Hey, where are you at? What are your goals? And then we can kind of go from there. And the first step is always learning about wherever they’re at. So sometimes it’s just, I need to learn about their business and how they’re operating and, and things like that.
Sometimes it’s about them personally, especially when it comes to if they’re coming to me for help with their like training, right? Like, well, who are you as a trainer? You know, what’s your style? How do you see, see the, the, the dog training world through your own lens? And then how can we make you basically the best version of yourself that you can be?
And that may look very different from me. Like that might, like you may train dogs. Like I have, I have clients that like, do not train dogs even remotely close to the way that I train them. And that’s okay. Right? Like, I think that’s, that’s really, really important. Um, so yeah. So, um, I mean, I think because of the nature of my work, I’m rarely confronted with the like, overconfident person.
Or if I do have those folks, they’re probably coming to me more for like, help with their business rather than help with their training. ’cause in their mind they’re already like really great at their training. Right. Um, and so I may not actually even see. That like, you know, the problematic side of that.
And my job is to provide for them what they’re hiring me for. It’s not my place to come in and start judging them or telling them things about, you know, what’s not, what’s not their goal for working together. Um, so I just don’t even really think about it. So most of the folks that I’m gonna deal with, it’s gonna be that, that sort of first end of the spectrum of like, they’re, they’re lacking that confidence.
And so it’s, okay, well why, why are we lacking that confidence? What specific areas are you lacking confidence in? And then how can we go through this together so you can gain more confidence and start to feel more comfortable? But the big thing is it’s about action. Um, and so, um, you know, when I’m working with a trainer, it’s not just like, Hey, we’re gonna have a bunch of really cool conversations and hopefully from those conversations, you’re gonna walk away change.
It’s like, no, we’re gonna actually do things. So, um, in the case of somebody who’s struggling with their actual. Training aspect of things. I like to work case studies with people. So even remotely through Zoom, we’ll wait till they have a client that sort of fits the bill of the kind of thing that they’re insecure about.
And then, okay, we’re gonna meet, um, once that contact form comes in, we’re gonna meet, we’re gonna talk about the case and what kind of questions you need to be asking when you first make contact with that client. And then after that first contact happens, we’re gonna meet again and we’re gonna talk about, okay, here’s how we’re gonna approach a, the whole program, whatever program you’re doing, whether it’s private lessons or board and train as a whole.
But then also very specifically, here’s how we’re gonna go into this first lesson. Here’s what I want you to try. Here’s the questions I want you to ask. Here’s information that we still wanna gain that we can only really gain through interacting with the dog. Um, here are some things I want you to just get some short video clips of and send back to me so that we can kind of review them together.
And then after that meeting, we’re gonna meet again. And, okay, cool. So what do we know now? Do we need to change anything about our overall plan? How are we gonna go into lesson number two? And we literally just walked through this together where they can then have the positive experience of saying like, okay, cool.
Like I did this. I followed this plan. Here’s how we created the plan together. I did these things and I was able to experience the outcome firsthand, because that’s really the only way that change takes place, right? Like for instance, you can have a client who’s got a reactive dog, and so on the walk. The client’s really tense, right?
And anxious. Um, for some people that have dealt with like a severely reactive dog, it’s almost like it’s very traumatic, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s a traumatic experience for them. So they go into every walk with this tension and you can say all you want to, you know, Hey, we need to be relaxed on the walk and you need to be calm and this and that.
But the reality is that person’s only gonna become more relaxed and calm once they start having more positive experiences. So the real goal is like, okay, I can tell them that that’s what they need to do, but then we need to find a way to start giving them those experiences where they’re able to control their dog, they’re able to see a better outcome.
However, we need to do that. And then, and only then are they gonna feel different. So for me, it’s the same thing when I’m working with a trainer, whatever their insecurity is, whether it’s, some of them, it’s their sales, right? Some of it’s that first that, that initial consultation, that initial evaluation.
For others it’s, Hey, I’m really uncomfortable when it comes to leash reactivity, or, I’m really not confident when it comes to human aggression. So whatever that is, we’re gonna create a plan. We are gonna talk about it. But then we’re gonna actually do it. We’re gonna set up an environment or a situation where we can go through this and we can have that experience, and you’re gonna see how comfortable it can be and how good the outcomes can be if we take certain steps.
And I want people to walk away having that experience because then it’s sinks in right then. It’s actually a learned experience, not just like, you know, you know, you can read a thousand self-help books. It’s not gonna change anything about you unless you put that stuff into action. So I want it to get put into action while we’re spending our time together, not like we have conversations.
Then you on your own, hopefully put it into action because nine times outta 10 it doesn’t happen. Right? It doesn’t happen. They move on to the next thing. They move on to the next YouTube video or book they read or whatever it is.
A lot of good advice there. So, Tyler, you had mentioned before we started lesson plans are an area you feel like a lot of newer trainers struggle with.
Do you want to dive into that for a little while and just give some advice on how to structure. Training and just any advice you can think of for a trainer that’s struggling with that?
Yeah, I mean, those who know me well, like I, I sound like a broken record on this all the time, but it’s something that I learned.
It’s been really interesting. So since, uh, it was 2022 when I actually sold my training center and, um, I was spending a lot of time, I was spending, you know, more of my time working with professionals, you know, even several years prior to that sale taking place. And what’s really cool about being in a position where that, like, that’s my focus instead of like, I’m focused on running my own training business.
And then sort of as an afterthought, I have some people that want to come shadow me or whatever is, um, I talk to a lot of dog trainers and I’ve learned so much about what make dog trainers tick here. And what’s been really, really interesting is that so many dog trainers, whether they’re new or even very experienced dog trainers, they.
Kind of wing it. Like they, they really kind of wing it in their lessons. Um, they might have an overall idea of what they wanna do, but for the most part, they’re walking into each lesson kind of winging it, or they kind of have this rote thing that they do with almost every dog. Right. And the actual training itself might be somewhat different based on the dog’s personality, but the things that are being taught are kind of the same, um, not as customized as they, as they would like it to, to necessarily, or, or they’ll probably like the client to believe, I guess.
Um, and there’s a lot of insecurity around that, right? So we talk about insecurity. I, I get so many trainers that come to me that no matter what they’re presenting outwardly to the customer, they’re actually quite insecure about starting their set of lessons or, you know, going into that board and train, what am I gonna do?
How am I gonna go about this? And so my biggest, like, if I were to give any, like, just simple piece of advice, it’s this. And I’ve, I’ve said this in a lot of other places, so some folks have heard this before, but I like to reverse engineer. So what I always start with like front and center in my mind is why is this person here?
Like, why is this person spending, you know, often hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on dog training? What motivated them to do that? What is that pain point? What is that day to day problem that they’re having? That’s the, that’s the front and center focal point. So in my training center, um, one of the things that we had on every dog’s kennel that was in board and train was a sheet that had, you know, the person’s contact info, but also front and center, like what are their goals?
Very clearly. We wanna look at that every time we get the dog out, what’s this person’s actual goal? And so from there, you know, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s obedience or a behavior problem, but we go, okay, what is like. Like every dog trainer for instance. Let’s just take something simple like, uh, like something common, like for instance, leash reactivity.
I think everybody deals with leash reactivity. It’s a very common problem. And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of different ways to do it. There are a lot of right ways to do it. There’s not, there’s, it’s not like there’s only one right way, okay? And so at some point, like every dog trainer says, well, before I start bringing out other dogs and we start doing pass bys on the street, we have to lay some foundation, right?
So what I want people to do is, okay, the end goal for this person is they wanna be able to walk their dog through their neighborhood and not have the dog blow up. Now, at some point you’re gonna say, all the foundations there, and now we’re ready to do this. Like this thing where I’m gonna bring out another dog and we’re gonna do the pass by, right?
And I want them to think about what. Is that gonna look like? What set of instructions are you gonna give the owner? So usually it’s gonna involve something proactive to do to maybe, hopefully prevent their dog from blowing up. And then it might involve a sort of like, what if the dog does the wrong thing?
And what if the dog does the right thing, right? And so for the owner to execute that sort of final exercise, right, for them, the first time we bring out a dog and we’re gonna give them those instructions for them to execute that, what skills do they need to have in place, right? So what does the owner need to be capable of, and what does the dog need to sort of understand or be experienced with?
And then those core skills. So maybe like for some people dealing with these reactivity involves like recalls maybe with an eco or something like that, right? Um, for other people, like for me, I, I use a lot of spatial pressure when I deal with reactivity, whatever it is, right? Then those skills can often be broken down into their sort of component parts and pieces.
And sort of dissected down from there. But that becomes my lesson plan. So the more I can like break those things down into pieces, great. That becomes the core of everything. Anything that’s not part of that is just sort of like extracurricular, right? So if I know that, like, okay, the client definitely needs to be able to recall their dog with an eco, well I know how I break that down, so I need to be able to start that process in lesson one.
There might be some other handling things you need the owner to know, okay, how are you gonna break that down and teach that sort of, you know, reverse engineer that all the way back down to lesson one. Um, but at that end goal, that end thing that’s gonna help that client be able to execute on that for instance, doesn’t involve a Downs stay because they’re out on a walk.
I mean, maybe some trainers do, maybe they ask their client to Downs stay when a dog’s passing. If that’s the case, then fine. Um, but if for you it doesn’t, then like I’m, why would I be working on a downst stay in less than one or two? If it’s not actually, like, it’s not, it’s not pertinent. Now that doesn’t mean I, I won’t do a Downs Stay ever with that dog, but it’s like a, it’s like extracurricular.
It’s like we’ve moved the needle really well on the things we have to, we have a bit of extra time. Okay. What are some other things that might have somewhat of an impact on solving this problem for you, but like not a huge impact and we’ve got some time, so like, let’s do that. Like a Downs stay. Okay.
It’s gonna build impulse control. And impulse control Yes. Is good for reactive dogs. It’s very indirectly sort of good. I think what a lot of dog trainers, um, sometimes forget is like, just because something will be beneficial doesn’t necessarily mean it’s beneficial enough for you to spend your valuable lesson time on, like the time we have with the client is a very fixed asset.
The amount of attention the client has, the willingness to practice things at home is a very fixed asset and we need to be very smart about that. So I always wanna be looking at what are the things that are gonna move the needle most. Really focus the bulk of my attention on that kind of reverse engineer those things back for my lesson plan and anything else is just sort of like, if I have the time, great.
If not, I’m not super, super worried about it. But I think when we can reverse engineer, so we know, okay, this is what I’m getting to, these are the skills that need to be taught to get me there. This is based on how many lessons I have and how I know I’ve broken this down kind of a timeline that I can have.
Then I walk into every lesson kind of knowing exactly where I need to be, knowing at what point I need to assess and say, am I ready to move on? Or if I need to kind of push things like, this isn’t quite where I’d want it to be, but based on my timeline, like, we’ve gotta just move on. So we’re just gonna have to push the dog through this a little bit.
Um, you, you’re, you’re gonna have a much clearer picture every step along the way of what needs to happen. Um, and I see this not only with private lessons, but also with board and trains where I see, I’ve seen trainers who they get three weeks into a four week board and train, and there’s something really crucial that they’re not even starting.
Until it’s, you know, they’re at like three and a half weeks and now they’ve got a week and a half left to teach this thing. That’s actually probably one of the most important things that they could have started in week one. But they didn’t pause before they started. They just got the dog out, started working on its foundation stuff and just going through the motions that they do with every single dog.
And then they find themselves feeling really insecure at the end of the program when they have to have that client meeting because they’re not as well prepared, or the dog’s not as well prepared as it probably could have been if they took the time to think about, here’s where I need to be at the end of this.
This is what the dog needs to do. This is my pathway to get there, and this is a realistic timeline of how I can break down, you know, this four weeks to kind of get there nice and smooth. And I have these benchmarks of like, I know that like by week two, like no if, and or buts I gotta start this next step regardless of where I’m at with step one.
You know what I mean? And, um, yeah, so just, it was a lengthier answer than I intended, but the like more of the story is like, start with that end goal. Like know what the client goal is. Visualize that, that set of instructions for that final exercise. Like if it’s a dog, that goes crazy when people enter the house.
Well, cool. So like when you got all the foundation there and you’re gonna have a, a neighbor come over and ring the doorbell, you’re gonna give the client some instructions. What are those instructions and what do you need to teach the client for them to execute those instructions? What do you need to teach the dog, for the dog to be able to perform those instructions and then reverse engineer that back down?
And that’s your lesson plan, right? And you can get really, really clear headed, and I’m not kidding you when I say that. Some of the biggest impacts or changes that I’ve seen when it comes to the outcomes of trainers that I work with it without adding a single new tool or trick to their toolbox. Just by getting them to approach the planning of their lessons more thoughtfully and more efficiently, they’re, they’re able to like really, like dramatically improve the outcomes with the dogs.
They’re training with the exact same methods and techniques that they’re already using.
So, you know, pretty much everything you walk through there is about the trainer creating a lesson plan, right. And understanding and having a plan, which I agree a hundred percent with how much time do you spend coaching them on how to deliver that lesson plan?
I call that a roadmap to the client. Yeah. Yeah. Where, because I think we’ve all been there. You show, I’ll give you an example. You show up to a house call dog, they say, my, you know, 18 month old Rottweiler will bite you if you take the raw hideaway. Like, okay, well we’re not working on that right now. Right?
Mm-hmm. And we give them a roadmap of the, here’s why all this stuff is important, right? Yeah. We give them our idea of our lesson plan and then walk them through why all of that is important. Is that something you spend a lot of time with coaching, and if so, any advice there on how they’re delivering that lesson plan to the client?
Yeah. So, um, I guess I wouldn’t say I spend a lot of time on it. Um, but it’s certainly something that comes up because, you know, some things that you’re gonna work on in the client’s mind, they can, they can really see the direct connection between whatever you’re teaching them and what their end goal is here.
Some things not so much and those things that are, that are, are gonna be harder for the client to understand, like, why this exercise is gonna lead to you solving your problem. We do really wanna make sure that they know that before we even start, because otherwise what’s gonna happen is the whole time you’re trying to teach them, in their mind they’re going like, why are we doing this?
This isn’t what I came here for. And, and they’re not, they’re only 50% paying attention to you, or they’re only 50% committed, um, to what they’re doing because they don’t understand how it’s gonna impact their quality of life. So I think the big thing is as much as possible, especially early in training, one other thing that I, I talk a lot about with the, the trainers that I coach is the early in training.
I really wanna do things. That the client is going to feel the impact of pretty quickly. So I, I like for instance, um, and I know some people may disagree with this and that’s okay. People can disagree with me. Um, I personally don’t spend any time in my early lessons like teaching clients about marker training, like teaching them about Yes.
Or clickers and having them charge the marker and this and that. Because for most clients, a lot of clients come to us already kind of skeptical about dog training, to be perfectly honest. They’ve seen dog training either on TV or they’ve just seen it in like a pet store. And it’s like, uh, that looks kind of chaotic.
Um, not, I’m not knocking pet store training for anybody who’s out there who’s worked at a pet store, but they just come into it kind of skeptical. And so, you know, we have ’em do something like that where they can spend, they can literally spend the entire next week going Yes. And feeding the dog and yes, and feeding the dog.
And it’s gonna have zero impact on that person’s quality of life. And so what happens then is the person starts becoming resistant to practicing. Because they’re saying, Hey, I did everything that you told me to do, and I don’t this, like, nothing’s like, I’m still just as stressed as I would be as I was before.
So yes, like giving them the roadmap is one thing that helps, right? Like making sure that they understand. But the other big thing that helps is if you can have your early lessons focus on something where the client’s gonna see and feel the impact of on their day-to-day experience. Almost immediately.
Like, I love doing leash walking in my early lessons because I know that I can teach almost any dog to walk on a loose leash. And like, honestly, it takes me about 15 minutes. So by the end of a first lesson, I can have a client having the best walk of their life with their dog and they’re going like, wow.
Like if I follow Tyler’s instructions, like life gets easier, things are less stressful when I do the things he tells me to do. Then when I go back and I ask him to do something that maybe it’s a little bit of a a little bit further removed from their day-to-day experience, they’re more likely to trust.
Right. They’re more likely to go, you know what, like I, I have faith because when you told me that x, y, Z was gonna happen, it did. I saw it right away. So if you’re telling me that I’m gonna do this and I might not see the impact of it for three weeks, I trust you. ’cause I’ve already seen that what you say is true, that you’re honest.
And so what’s tricky, and this kind of plays into also some of the, I don’t wanna say the discussion between like balance training and, and positive only training, but um, maybe it does, I don’t know, is sometimes what this means is that early on, like the way I’m approaching it when I’m working with a client might be very different from how I would train that dog if it were just me and the dog, right?
And I might be doing something that if I really think about it, like it’s maybe not the most fair. To the dog. Like I might in that first lesson do something that, yeah, probably would be better for the dog if we were got a little bit more foundation with two, three weeks in. But what we have to recognize is it’s not just about the dog.
We’re dealing with a dog human relationship here. And what that means is that the, like if you’re a relationship counselor, you know there has to be compromise on both ends of this picture. And unfortunately because the human’s, the one that sort of pays the bill, and if the human doesn’t buy in, the dog can never be helped.
We sort of have to prioritize the human psychology in the beginning, in my opinion. And that sometimes means that the dog is the first one that has to make compromise. Because once we can do that, then we can ask the human to make compromise. We can say, Hey, I know this thing is kind of stressful. I need you to just sort of deal with that stress for another few weeks because we’ve gotta like build the dog up a little bit.
We gotta give the dog a really clear understanding of things before we, we push ’em a little bit. Um, and so that’s what I’m asking the human to make compromise the human to deal with some stress for a period of time, right? The human to swallow that pill in the best interest of the dog. But early on, I find that if, if we sort of make the compromise on the dog end, and I know that sounds bad, or if I say like, you know, some of the stuff we might do early on might be a little bit unfair to the dog, but there’s gonna be stuff that’s like, that’s, that’s relationships, right?
Like it’s not, everything is not always 50 50 equal fairness all the time, right? Like it’s, I, I, I have two kids, I have to have this conversation like 12 times a day. Um, but, you know, uh, but you know, that helps with that whole thing too. Like that whole idea of the client having that roadmap, but also being able to trust in the roadmap.
So part of it is. Like, yes. We need to have that con, you need to have the clear roadmap in your head so that you can communicate it to the customer and that it makes sense. Like it’s all logical. But the other piece of it is we need the customer to actually buy in and to trust and to believe. And sometimes it’s a lot to ask if we’re gonna say, Hey, I’ve got this whole plan and you’re, you’ve gotta trust me for like three or four solid weeks before we even get to the point where you start to feel like quality of life improvement.
And I think that’s where you start to see a lot of dog trainers complain about client follow through where the clients aren’t doing the homework right. Or they’re not practicing enough at home because it’s learned helplessness. Right. It was, this would be no different. Like I always say this would be no different than if I put a remote collar on a dog and I held down the continuous button and I told the dog come.
And the dog came to me and I just kept holding the button and I tell ’em to sit and they sat and I kept holding the button. Sooner or later the dog’s can go like, well, I might as well just do what I want anyway because I’m gonna feel this pressure no matter what I do. And so it’s no different. The clients come to us, nobody spends a like $4,000 on dog training just because they wanna see what dog training is like.
Like usually they’re undergoing some kind of stress in their life. And so if I say, Hey, go do this thing for 30 minutes a day, seven days a week, and they do it and they’re still feeling that stress, and I go, okay, now do this other thing for 30 minutes a day, seven days a week. And they do it and they’re still feeling that stress sooner there they go.
Like, why? Like why this is a lot of work and I’m not seeing outcome. Right. That’s I. Every principle that we apply to, to a dog learning, we have to also apply to the human side of that leash as well. And the humans need also that negative reinforcement, they need that relief from pressure. When I tell them to do something and they do it, it should relieve some kind of pressure.
And once they see that, and once I have buy-in, then just like a dog, I can say, okay, now your reinforcement isn’t gonna come until you hold that. Sit for 30 seconds and then I’m gonna click and reward. But in the beginning, we had to give that reinforcement right away. So same thing for the client in the beginning, I wanna do things where the client is reinforced right away, then I can ask them and I can get their trust where I say, now I need you to do something where you’re not gonna see the impact.
A a, a really tangible example of this would be like, I already matched it. I like to do leash walking early on. And so for obedience clients, one way that I used to commonly run my first lesson would be like leash walking right outta the gate. Because it’s, I can, I, I’m good at it. It’s just, it’s just one of my strengths.
And so they’re already going like, wow, this is great. Then I come in and it, and, and honestly for me, the leash walking, it’s, I don’t do leash walking with positive reinforcement. I, I don’t, it’s, it’s all some form of negative reinforcement or punishment for me. That’s the way I do leash walking. Um, but then we come in and we start place command, and I do my place command all positive Reinforcement foundation, and I say to the client like, look it, the dog’s not gonna stay here like for any length of time right now.
Like, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to practice this for however many minutes a day, da, da, da, da. But trust me, like once we start to add in the leash pressure, or once we get to the remote collar, like, you’re gonna, you’re always gonna stay for like 30 minutes. And because they already had that experience with the leash walking, they’re like, totally, I sure I believe it.
Right? And so now I can ask them to do a whole week of just clicker training, a place command, and they’re fully bought in on that. But if I led with that. And then they see their dog, like, not like jumping off every time they’re, they’re just skeptical the whole time. They’re just questioning what I’m doing the entire time.
Right? So those two things, like having that roadmap, but also trusting in the roadmap. They’re, they’re really tied together very intimately, and we need to be thinking about both of them to make sure that the client sees that path forward, but also believes it.
That makes me think of something I read in a book years ago that I explained to my trainers a lot, which is, I’m sure I’m gonna butcher the phrase, but it’s, people don’t want a drill.
They want a hole, meaning no one is going to get a drill. ’cause they just think they, they want this machine, right? They want a hole somewhere. They have a need for it. And that’s how I feel about training. Most people don’t really want a dog trainer, or most don’t even really want a train dog. They want a dog who’s not bad, right?
They called you for a reason. They want their dog to not pull on leash or run off or bite people or bark or whatever. But they don’t want a trainer come into their house 20 times. That’s. You know that’s a necessary evil, right? Yeah. In their mind, they just want, you know, their pain alleviated and we stress that a lot to our trainers for exactly what you said.
They want their walk to be better immediately or some sort of change. They don’t want to train their dog for the next four months. They will, if you can prove it to ’em that it’s gonna work and make their life better, but you’ve gotta prove it to ’em. Got prove. Yeah. Otherwise they think my life was already hard, now I’m gonna pay you money.
And it’s still gonna be hard. Like where’s Yeah,
where’s the now? And most people actually don’t want to train their dog. Like, so, you know, if you’re somebody who focuses on like agility, or rally or nose work, like the clients that are coming to you, like they, they want to be there, right? They’re having fun with their dog.
They’re into it. They’re sort of a hobbyist or an enthusiast. It’s a completely different attitude. The average person that comes to somebody who does behavior work. They don’t, they’d rather be spending their time doing something totally different. They really don’t wanna train their dog at all. So yeah, we, we really have to be mindful of that.
And it, it is unfortunate, right? Like it’s, it’s the difference between the reality and the, the sort of ideal. And so again, like, um, I’m told you guys, I’m, I am, uh, this is blasphemous, but I am a proud doodle owner. As of about a month ago, we, we sort of adopted, I can’t even say rescue, ’cause she was cared for in a very lovely way her whole life.
Uh, but a 4-year-old mini Labradoodle, golden Doodle, she’s an amazing dog. Um, and I’ve had her for a month and I, I train her almost every day. But like, all I’ve really worked on with her is recall and place. Um, and really slow and taking my time. Like I’m not in any kinda rush. It’s very different from how I would approach it if this were a client that came to me and is spending money and they’re paying me by the hour and they’ve got certain goals in, right?
So the, the, the ideal way to train a dog, and then the reality of when we’re dealing with this as a business are sometimes two very different things. And so how can we balance that out, right? So, yep. If I could early on get buy-in from the client that’s actually in the best interest of the dog because then I can actually get them to really slow things down and they’re gonna do it like they’re gonna, they’re gonna actually do it.
Um, one other thing that I think is, is this is another like piece of advice I think could be of a lot of value to a lot of dog trainers that comes up a lot and it’s kind of related here, if you don’t mind, is, um. I guess I see this more inboarding trains, but it’s also private lessons too. I know when I first started and I learned from some people that kinda like helped me learn how to like market my programs and and whatnot, it was like, okay, somebody comes in for, again, let’s just use the same example of leash reactivity.
And we go, okay, cool. Like we’re gonna do a four week boarding train. And not only am I gonna work on your leash reactivity, but I’m also gonna do full off leash obedience with your dog. All five commands, come heel, sit down please. And in our mind as trainers like, wow, this is great for the customer. Like I’m doing the customers this massive, huge, wonderful thing by not only solving this problem but also promising all this off-leash obedience.
Right. And what’s, there’s a couple problems here. I mean, one is those same trainers often, and this was me too, right? So this was me, to be perfectly honest. Uh, they’ll get another dog come in that like the owner just wants off-leash obedience and they’ll be like, yep. Four week program, full off leash obedience, no OB behavior problem.
I have to solve same amount of money. And it’s like. Why are you doing that to yourself? Why? Like, why are you promising this person who has a complicated behavior problem that you’re gonna solve that and do all the off lease training in the same amount of time and same amount of money as somebody who just wants the off lease training part of it.
So first off, either if you’re gonna promise all that, give yourself more time and charge more. But the reality is you’re actually not doing the customer any favors. The customer didn’t ask for the full off of these training. And what happens is this, two things. One, from a sales standpoint, we’ll start there.
’cause you gotta make the sale before you can help the dog anyway. So from a sales standpoint, let me use an analogy here, Matt. Let’s say that you came to Buffalo where I live now, of course Buffalo we’re known for buffalo wings, right? Like that’s the thing. And let’s just say that you, I’m
already in just name the time.
Yeah, maybe you’re a convert. Maybe you spent your whole life as a vegetarian and now you just started eating meat, but you’ve never had an authentic buffalo wing before. And you come to Buffalo and you’re like, I gotta get some buffalo wings, right? And so you go down to like. Oh, I don’t know. We’ll say like Allentown, which is just like strip here.
It’s got lots of bars and restaurants and stuff. And you walk into a place, you’re like, I want buffalo wings. They go, cool. So what we’ve got is this, um, whole sample platter. It’s got three buffalo wings, it’s got a handful of deep fried mushrooms, it’s got onion rings, it’s got some chicken fingers. So it’s got all these other things that like you, you, you didn’t even ask for.
And I’m like, and it’s $34, right? And you’re gonna go like, okay, well, but it’s only got three of the buffalo wings. You know what, let me pop down to the bar next door because I wanna see if I can just get like a dozen wings. Maybe it’ll cost me less and I don’t have to get all these other things that I didn’t even ask for.
So when you have somebody come in for that board and train and you go, yeah, so I’m gonna charge you four grand and I’m gonna do not only the problem that you asked for, the thing that motivated you to be here, but I’m gonna also do all these other things. What’s going through that customer’s head is I wonder if there’s somebody who will do just the thing I want and charge me less, right?
So it’s not actually always a good thing, but the bigger problem is. You get this client that then comes in at the end of it and now they’ve spent all this money for all this off leash stuff and because they spent all that money, they feel compelled that they have to upkeep it All people today are busy.
People today are tired. Right? Where you actually handed them as a burden. That’s what you handed them. You handed them more work that they never asked for. So actually if, if you were to come and I say, listen, we’re gonna do four weeks, I’m gonna focus 100% on solving this problem for you. Now there are a couple obedience things that we’re gonna use to solve the problem.
I’m gonna focus on those. If time permits, I’ll, I’ll, I’m gonna throw in some bonuses for you. But like for the most part, I’m gonna give all my attention to solving this problem. This is how much time it’s gonna take. And then you also went to somebody else and they were like, yeah, same amount of time, but I’m gonna do all these things.
You’re probably gonna hire me ’cause I’m gonna spend all my time. On actually the problem that needs to be solved. I don’t know why. I just got fireworks behind my head. This thing is, what is going on? I, that was wild. Okay. That’s
amazing.
Um, so, so it’s actually a better selling point. You know, every dog trainer I know, literally every dog trainer I know has somewhere in their sales and or marketing that they customize the training for every dog, right?
Like every, every dog trainer I know has that line somewhere in some form. Why do they have it there? Because we all know that it’s what the customer wants, right? So now me, you come to me now only am I giving you more of what you want. So I’m gonna spend way more of the time, I’m gonna get way more reps in on solving the actual problem.
It’s, it’s, the customer is more likely to hire me. I’m more likely to get a better outcome. And I also, I’ve got a fraction of the things that I need to be concerned about at that go home lesson of being perfect. Right. So the trainer who promised everything, now they’re gonna be, they’re, they’re at week three and a half and the dog’s not holding its downs, stay really well and they’re all insecure about that.
Like, oh, this is gonna make me look bad when the client comes in. I don’t have that problem because I didn’t teach the dog a downs stay. I only have a couple things I gotta worry about getting perfect. You have like seven things you gotta worry about being perfect, right? So they’re actually shooting themselves in the foot in so many different ways here.
But then the other piece of it is, when it comes to that go home lesson, you spent most trainers, you know, a lot of trainers do like a two hour go home, sometimes even less. And you spent all this time doing all this off obedience and now you feel the need that you gotta go through those motions. Like they gotta show the client the downstate, the place command, the heel, the, all this kind of stuff for me.
I’m not doing any of that. I got two hours with you. We’re gonna get so many reps in of passing other dogs that I’m gonna be so confident that you’re gonna go home knowing what to do. You are gonna be confident going home because we just spent like an hour straight just passing dog after depu, pulling dogs out the kennel, we’re going every variation of this around corner.
Like I’m get, I’m making sure that you’re, I’m spending all this time on not just the dog getting good at the thing that the client cares about, but the client getting really good. I can’t tell you how many times I observe trainer’s final lessons and it’s like that dog that came in for leash reactivity and by the time they get through all the other stuff, they taught the dog and they’re like, okay, cool.
Now we’re gonna go out and do pass buys. And it’s like of that two hour lesson, they’re spending 15 minutes on pass buys, and then the customer, you can see how insecure the customer is leaving and then they wonder why the people are struggling. Post board and train, or, the other thing that happens is, again, people feel this, this, they feel compelled to practice all these things because they spend so much money on it.
And this is just a bit of like human psychology is when a, some of it starts to fall through the cracks. Like, oh, I’m, boy, he’s, I haven’t kept up on the place commander, I haven’t kept up on the recall or whatever this other thing is. They start to feel bad about themselves and once they start to feel bad about themselves, they start slacking on almost everything.
Like they throw the baby out with the bath water, you know? And so it just, it actually leads to this whole like, poor performance issue. And again, it’s, it’s one of the most common things that we’re hearing from dog trainers is client follow through. How do, like my clients aren’t following through. How do I get clients to, to practice more, to practice the things I’m telling?
And one of the best ways to do that is to simply teach them less. What is the, what are the fewest things that you can give this person the fewest skills that are gonna move the needle the most and focus on those. And everything else is just bonus from there. But I’d rather have the client learn two things and get really, really good at those two things than I have to teach them seven things and they’re kinda like mediocre on all seven.
And I’m gonna have a way better shot at solving that problem. Not only is the dog gonna come outta the program better ’cause I was able to spend more of my time on it, but the clients gonna be better trained. ’cause in those go home lessons, there are just fewer skills they have to learn.
Right. Have you been spying on one of my go home lessons, Tyler?
I have. I have. That was, that was me in the bushes. It’s hard me,
right. I, I think what you said is gonna resonate with everybody listening because two hours, whatever you’re doing, trying to cover everything is really hard. Too hard. Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head. At least to me, that as dog trainers, we feel like we have to cover literally everything.
Everything. Right. And we wanna drain the dog and everything.
Just don’t, you don’t Like literally once, like once we changed our marketing where we really just focused on like, hey, we’re gonna just. We’re gonna zero in on your problem and we’re not gonna do all these other things unless we have time.
Everything got better. Like our experience, our workday got better, our client’s experience was better, the dogs were, were better ’cause they got more practice, more confident. Like just everything got better. Less is more. Keep it as simple as you can possibly keep it, teach that few, that client the fewest number of things and you’re gonna be more successful.
I can virtually guarantee it.
Makes a lot of sense. I was wondering, Jason, do you, you do so many different things that are very different, right? Service dogs and police dogs and pet dogs. Do you see a big difference in how you have to train your team and because I, I can imagine like with a police dog, you do have to do literally everything, right?
You can’t cut some of this now. Yeah. Yeah. Course with a pet, with a pet dog, different story. I’m just curious what your thoughts are hearing that and how you get your team to be able to, to modify based upon what type of training they’re doing.
Yeah. I would say really, I would say everybody, every division within the business has, um, a very different approach to teaching people because, you know, teaching, teaching pet owners, um, as challenging as that can be, uh, I will argue, um, as a whole, training police officers to handle police talks is way tougher.
And, and you know, kinda, we talked about in one of one of our recent episodes, working with individuals with disabilities, that’s a game changer too. Mm-hmm. Uh, and again, with like you said with service dogs, with police dogs, yeah. You gotta off, you gotta give them everything. Yeah.
Yeah.
But you know, I think to Tyler’s point, I think what he’s talking about is you’re really kind of honing in on those problematic behaviors.
Because again, this just sort of my belief and, and sort of what I. Convey to a lot of the folks coming through our programs. You know, people with good dogs, they’ll spend the money when they have the time and when it’s convenient and when they have, you know, a little extra cash. People with problematic dogs, they want something done.
They want it done now.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, you know, being able to, being able to identify and resolve those problems, really hone in and focus on what the issue is and get that fixed for ’em, uh, can really make a difference, in my opinion, in, uh, in the word of mouth you get.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, I think it can make a big difference in really the overall number of clients you get.
Uh, but you gotta, you gotta be able to show people success and you gotta be able to do it. On some, in some circumstances, you gotta be able to do it pretty quick. I’m not talking about minutes. All the more reason
to teach, to teach fewer things. And I would actually say like, it’s, it’s not just, um, problem behaviors, but even obedience too in, in the pet dog world.
Um, and I’m gonna use an example that I, that I’ve, I’ve, I’ve used before, but I think it just helps to illustrate the, the point of all this, right? So, um, let’s take, let’s just say you get a client in for obedience training and most dog trainers I know teach like five kind of core commands. So come heel, sit down place, we’ll just kind of go with those for right now.
Okay? Um, and in talking to this person, you find out that they live on land, like they’ve got a farm or they’ve got trails behind and they don’t really put their dog on leash very much, maybe once a year to go to the vet. And for the most part, their, their dog’s off leash on trails. Okay? So a lot of dog trainers and this not all.
So if you’re listening and this isn’t you. That’s cool, but a lot of dog trainers, like every dog that comes in, they teach those five commands like pretty much regardless. And so if you think about we have a 100% of our allotted time and energy, and so we splitting it between those five things. So that’s 20% of our time towards those five things.
Okay? Now what if, what if I said, you know what? This person barely ever puts their dog on leash. So how about we just don’t worry about leash walking? We knock that thing off. Okay, now we have four things to allocate our time to. Now, this may not seem that significant, but we break that up. Now we’re spending 25% of our time on those four things.
Now, 20 to 25 doesn’t seem that big, but it’s actually that increase is actually a 20% increase, right? So each one of those four things, you’re now able to do 20% more repetition on. Than you were before by just dropping off that one command. Okay? Now, any business out there knows 20% increase in your revenue at the end of the year is great, right?
20% is nothing to shake a stick at. But let’s take it a step further. What if we said, you know what? Yeah, I could spread that equally, but what if I took the time I was gonna spend on leash walking and because recall is the most important thing, I put all that time onto my recall. So each of the other things I’m gonna keep at 20% of my time, but now recall, I’m going to 40% of my time, I’m putting all that 20% I was gonna do on leash.
Walking onto recall, I just increased the number of repetitions I can do on recall by 100%, right? I doubled the number of time and repetition of recall, which is that client’s most, most important thing. And I’ve got one less skill. I have to teach the dog. I don’t think there’s a dog trainer out there that would argue that if you, if you double the amount of repetition spent on an individual command, that you’re not gonna get a better outcome with that command.
You see what I mean? So. Again for that, that customer, now they know like the money that they’re spending, right? The the time that they’re paying me to spend with their dog is going towards the things that matter most to them. I’m gonna get a better outcome with that dog. I’ll be able to actually take it slower with recall, give that dog a better, more fair experience.
’cause I don’t have to rush that, that command as much, right? I can, I’m gonna get a lot of reps in with that. Um, better outcome is gonna lead to more referrals. Again, honestly, less things I need to be concerned about for the end. Like, I don’t need all these things to be perfect. Now I have one less thing, right?
I have 20% less things that need to look good at the end of this. So even for just obedience, if we’re asking the right questions, a lot of times we could say, well, what commands matter most? What are the commands that are gonna have the biggest day-to-day impact for the way that this person lives with their dog?
And let me weight my training more heavily towards those things. Get more reps in. Is there any commands here that the owner’s not really gonna use that much? Because if they’re not really gonna use it, why bother teaching it? Put that time onto things they are gonna use, that’s one less thing the owner has to practice.
So we’re increasing the probability of owner follow through because we’re only having them practice the things that matter to them. You see what I mean? So it matters really significantly for behavior problems, but even just for plain old obedience training in the pet dog world, I agree with you a hundred percent when it comes to service dogs and police dogs.
Like you gotta teach the things you gotta teach, right? Whether the client, you know, the police officer may not, may puff their chest out and not want a particular thing, but you’re going like, Nope, you need to learn this. Um, you know, but in the pet dog world, we can really tailor our training quite a bit.
And that doesn’t just mean like, oh, with this dog, I’m gonna be more, I’m gonna use a little bit more of like a pop on a leash and this dog more pressure or this, like, I mean, actually like tailoring what we’re teaching, right? Like the, the actual skills that we’re teaching that dog and owner, boy, you can, you can really, like I said, really improve your outcome quite a bit.
Same exact methods, same exact tools, same exact techniques. Just putting a little bit more thought into the actual planning of what skills do I actually need to teach this person to solve their problems or to make their life better, and how can I make sure that I allocate my time really wisely to the things that are gonna move the needle the most.
So Tyler, I’ve got a question for you on that. So for all the trainers listening, I’m sure some of them are thinking about from a sales standpoint, how do you handle it when you’re talking to a client and they say, oh, this other company is gonna do this, this, this, and this and this, and it’s this much money, and you’re charging me this much money, and it sounds like you’re doing less or you’re only covering this, but you’re not doing these other things.
How would you handle that?
Yeah, so my, my, I would, I would handle it by just asking them like, well, like I’ll do what you want, right? So me and that other trainer, we both have the same amount of time and energy to spend, but. Do you want me to spend my energy making the things that matter to you most as perfect as possible?
And I’ll get to those things. If this gets perfect, then I will get to those things, but I’m gonna prioritize what matters to you. Or do you want me to spend equal time on these things? Because I’ll do it however you want me to do it. It’s your money, but I’m gonna give you that option and that other trainer’s not.
You see what I mean? Mm-hmm. And so it’s, it’s all in how you frame it. I think most clients, so first off, I would just say, um, that’s a conversation that will probably almost never occur because most clients actually want the customized approach. Most clients, if you say, Hey, I’m gonna teach, you didn’t ask me for these things, but I’m gonna teach ’em what they know right off their bat is like, you teach you, you basically run every dog through the same exact program, is what I’m hearing, right?
Every dog is the same combo platter of fried items, right? Whereas I’m gonna say, no, no, no, no. Look at four weeks is not a lot of time. I wanna make sure that this thing that matters most to you gets as perfect as I can possibly get it. That’s my number one priority. That’s what the client wants to hear.
So
back, back to the fried platter. You’re a thin guy, but is everyone in Buffalo fat? I’m just hearing
this about all these No, no
fried mushrooms and giant platters.
No, we actually don’t eat that stuff that much. No. Well, uh, no. I mean, we’re Western New York. You know, we tend to be burly, burly folk. I’m not, but um, I exercise a lot and I try to eat well.
Um, no, like, like, like, uh, I mean, obviously people in Buffalo, we like our wings like anybody else, but it’s not like, uh, the big, like we don’t care that much. Actually, Buffalo has really good food. Um, I, I used to love when I would have students come here, my, my favorite part of having shadow students was taking them out for meals.
We have, we have great, like, locally owned awesome restaurants here. Like our, our food scene, um, is so far beyond buffalo wings and beef on Weck. Like it’s, uh, so we have those things, but it’s not like people in Buffalo, like, I’ve rarely eat langu. It’s like not. That big of a thing here, you know? Um, it’s, I I guess it’s, it’s, it’s no more popular here than it is anywhere else in the country.
Yeah. But we have really good food in Buffalo. If we want good food, come to Buffalo.
I’ve got a buddy who just spent a few weeks in Wisconsin and he came back and he’s like, man, they eat a lot of cheese, drink cheese. A lot of beer. Yeah. And this might offend some Wisconsin people. And he is like, but I saw so many fat people.
It was crazy. And he just, he said he couldn’t get over it. The amount of beer and cheese that was consumed everywhere he went. I’m like, that’s the Wisconsin stereotype right
there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Buffalo’s a blue collar city, you know, it’s definitely a blue collar city. So we like our, our pizza and beer and wings.
Like we, we like that stuff. But, uh, yeah, you have to work hard to, you know, be, be fit. Over 40 is a, is a uphill battle, you know?
Absolutely. Training dogs is a good way to do that.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I’m not out there training dogs as much anymore. You know, I’m here in front of a computer screen working with the dog trainers, so.
I’m doing, uh, calisthenics in my underpants in my bedroom. That’s, that’s, that’s what it is.
Oh, that’s awesome. So you had mentioned at the start there was, uh, you’ve got some cool projects you are working on. You wanna fill us in on those?
Yeah, so I, um, so I already mentioned a little bit, we’ve got the professional membership that we’re building.
We’ve got the courses kind of coming out a la carte right now that can be purchased individually. Um, so they’re, they’re not included in our standard membership, but they will be included in an upcoming professional membership. Um, but we do have an event coming up. I don’t do a lot of seminars anymore. I don’t do shadow programs.
I actually didn’t do any seminars from like 2017 until like last year. Um. I only do like private, private coaching things, like I’ll go in person and like work with a team. Um, but I have an event coming up, it’s here in Buffalo. I’m partnering with the guys from the Dog Trainer podcast, Mariano and Brent Lata.
Um, and we’re doing a workshop, it’s called the Art of Teaching 2.0. So they did the first one last year in California with Michael Ellis. And then we’re doing this one out here in Buffalo with myself. Um, and it’s a really unique event, I think because it’s focusing on the, the teaching aspect. So we’re not focusing on like how to train a dog, we’re focusing on how to convey this information, how to take the great information that you know, and convey it in a really smart and efficient way to your customers.
Um, and we’ve got this, we’ve got a really cool outline for this thing. We’re gonna have a nice workbook for folks. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a humans only event. There’s no dogs. Um, and we’re gonna be breaking into groups and doing different exercises. ’cause again, uh, that same belief of like. We have to actually do things to, to make changes to, to, to really have that learning sink in.
Um, so yeah, art of Teaching 2.0, it’s the first week and in August, it’s actually right after IACP conference. Um, and, uh, I can give you guys a link. Maybe you could put it in the show notes. Sure. ’cause it’s on the Ticket Tailor, uh, website is how we’re doing the tickets. Um, but it’s a really cool event.
It’s gonna be three days and really focused on improving your teaching skills. Everything from actually Matt, like you mentioned, you know, a big part of all this like, know, y know thyself as a dog trainer. And so, um, like day one is all about both making sure that we are doing a good sort of inventory of our own skills and making sure that we are sort of organizing our own knowledge in a thoughtful way.
Um. Yeah. And then also how to do a really good evaluation for the client. Like how to really ask the right questions and set yourself up for success. Um, and then day two is all about the program planning part of it. So, uh, much more expanded version of what I kind of talked about today of lesson planning, but also some other really great ideas that can go into like how do we, how do we actually plan what we’re gonna do from a big picture standpoint?
And then day three is sort of the execution. So it’s like, okay, now here we are in the lesson and we’re gonna teach this individual skill, and how do we sort of master that ability to teach a specific skill to somebody else? So we go from the sort of evaluating ourself, evaluating the client, planning the program, and then, you know, executing each individual, I don’t even wanna say lesson.
’cause in an individual lesson you might actually work on two or three different skills. So actually like any skill we’re gonna teach. How do we, how do we sort of plan that and execute it really well? Um, we are looking into the possibility of live streaming it. I’m not a hundred percent sure if we’re gonna do that yet.
So right now it’s just an in-person thing. Uh, but it’s gonna be a really, really cool event. We’ve put a lot of thought into it. We’ve been meeting weekly, kind of planning this thing out, and I’m very, very excited about it. And it’ll probably be the only live in person event that I do all year. Personally.
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That sounds awesome. Yeah. Well, hopefully, of course, uh, hopefully you’ll livestream it. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would be able. Yeah. We’re gonna,
we’re gonna try to, we were meeting with somebody, uh, this week about live streaming. And I will say, um, I’ll give you guys the link, but you can also just go to tyler muto.com.
That’s also my website for my, you know, professional coaching and consulting business. So if anybody’s, you know, out there listening that is looking for help with either growing their business or just improving their best practices as a dog trainer, you can find info about that there. But I do have the seminars tab, and this event is the only event there because I just don’t do a lot of seminars anymore.
Awesome. Well, I look forward to seeing what comes from that. Hopefully you do the live stream. I think it’d be be neat. Yeah,
it’s gonna be cool. I, I hope so too. Yeah.
Awesome. Jason, anything you think we’ve missed or not covered
yet? I. I just got a quick, I just got a final question, I guess, um, sounds like Tyler, it sounds like you deal with a lot of trainers, various different levels.
Uh, is there a consistent thing that you feel like people have frustrations with or, or find to be challenging as you’re, as you’re working with a variety of trainers?
Man, it’s, I think it’s hard to nail it down into one thing because again, I get some folks that they’re coming to me and it’s about the, the dog training piece of it.
And so then, um, I would say we get, I, I help a lot of folks that are, um, especially maybe that are like just a couple years in that are like, okay, I feel like I’m ready now to start taking on some of these, like, aggression cases or more challenging behaviors, but I just need a little bit of handholding in the beginning.
Like, I, I want some guidance. They don’t wanna do what I did, uh, which is the right choice, right? Like, I just sort of jumped into it and made all kinds of mistakes. Um. And I, so I think that’s really good. Um, the, the, the other big frustration there that I would say again is, is either, um, frustration about client follow through or insecurity around like their actual programs themselves.
So they’ve kind of got these programs. They’re not sure if they’re the right length, if they’re charging right amount of money, but also like, okay, like I’ve, I’m, I’m, I’ve got these four lesson packages, I’m selling a lot of, but I’m not a hundred percent sure that like what I’m doing within those four lessons is the most efficient way to help these folks.
Right? So that goes into like that lesson planning piece. Um, from the business end of things. Um, I see a lot of problems right now. Some like the, the big frustration, like right now, obviously we’re in a completely different global economy than we were in 10 years ago. You know, anybody who started their business in the 20 teens.
Got, it was like that was a comfortable time to be a dog trainer. I mean, money was raining from the sky. You could basically do no wrong, put up a website and you’re gonna make money. Um, and then of course COVID hit and then the big inflation hit. And even though like the stock market recovered largely after that, the consumer, ever since 2021, has been under a lot of pressure and a lot of dog training businesses are starting to feel contraction.
It was just a different sort of market regime than what many people were used to. And what really interesting in my position, again, talking to so many dog trainers, is some of my clients throughout that period were contacting me because they were thriving and expanding, and they wanted help with planning their expansions, help with financial projections so that they could secure lending, help with, um, even just floor plans for a new kennel building and things like that, right?
Um, and then other people are in that same period, are they’re, they’re like, Hey, I was doing great. And all of a sudden I’m like worried about how my finances are gonna look next month. And they’re struggling. And because I have a, um, a trusting relationship with people, I, I’m, I get to peek behind the curtains of all these businesses and I get to see these patterns of, okay, there are some consistent things that the people that are thriving are doing versus the people that are struggling.
And so, I wouldn’t say that like somebody’s coming to me frustrated, but it, we’re getting a lot of people that come and they’re just like, they’re worried right now. Right? They’re worried, they’re feeling either they’re, they’re having a hard time getting their business up off the ground or they were doing just fine.
And all of a sudden the past couple years they’re feeling the clients start to say, Hey, like, I don’t know that I have the money to afford this. Or their phone’s not ringing as much. Um. The consistent threads that I see are, that are problematic for these folks that I think are the, again, I always go for the low hanging fruit.
So I’m the same way when I, when it comes to business as I am with dogs, what is the fewest number of things that we can focus on that are gonna move the needle most here? So that’s where, like the first thing I do is always like a little bit of an assessment of where their business is at. I wanna look at some data.
I wanna know how they’re performing. So I can say, where’s your weak spot? ’cause sometimes it’s not where people think it is. Like they think they have a marketing issue when really they have a lead generation issue and they’re pouring their money into marketing, marketing, marketing. But that’s not the problem.
Um, so the, the big things are websites. So I get a lot of dog trainers that either just kind of threw together their own website and, you know, made it sound nice to them, but they didn’t really have any guidance as to like, but what. What makes a website perform really well from a, from a lead generation standpoint.
’cause that’s really what the website is, right? It’s like sort of like your first, your first line of like sales essentially. Um, and so I look at websites and I’m like, a lot of times I can, I can, like, I get their contact form, I look at their site and I can, before I even talk to the person, I go, this person’s struggling right now.
I could just look at their website, be like, this person’s gonna tell me that their business is struggling. That’s what this phone call is gonna be about. Uh, because I do a free discovery call with everybody initially to kind of talk to them and learn about what their goals are. Um, and I could, so it’s sometimes it’s like, like that’s a consistent thing.
Website. The other consistent thing is people, I see a lot of people that do either a free or sometimes even a paid initial consult, where then the goal would be to, you know, obviously sell somebody into a, a more robust package, a more complete package. And they’ve never had any guidance as to like how that consult should go.
And again, there’s just sort of winging it. And maybe that worked when. Interest rates were basically zero and money was raining from the sky, but it’s not working now. And there are some really basic principles of sales. I was fortunate, I had a mentor early in my career that I actually hoped was gonna teach me how to train dogs better, but ended up not teaching me much about dogs, but taught me how to sell, like taught me how to sell my programs.
Um, and of course now this being sort of my focus, I have to do a lot of self-education on best practices for, for sales as well. So that’s another pain point. So like the website thing is a pain point, not having a plan for sales is a pain point. And then just like really, like inconsistent, like I just put out a blog point post about this, like inconsistent strategies.
Um, so, you know, there are, uh, one of the advantages that I have, I think because of my work in finance is I’m fascinated by macroeconomics. I pay a lot of attention to, you know, both our national economy, but also the global economy. And there are strategies and best practices that work really well. In an economy of abundance, right?
So again, in 2015, right? And then there are very different strategies in a more scarcity kind of economy like we’re experiencing right now. And so one thing I see is trainers kind of fail to recognize that, and then they don’t adapt, right? And they, like dog training, businesses are so adaptable. You know, especially if you’re small, if you’re like a one or two person operation, like you are so nimble, you can change your strategy seasonally.
I mean, you can really be flexible with these things and, and people often don’t. Or if they’re actually mixing things, they have elements of a strategy that works well in a time of abundance, and then other elements that work well in a time of scarcity. And some of those things actually contradict or kind of cancel each other out.
And so I wouldn’t say these are things that, that people are frustrated about. They’re things that people, they’re, they’re blind spots I would call them. So that people are frustrated at lack of income. Um. They don’t know what that’s coming from. They’re, they’re blind to these little things. And that becomes my job and my expertise is to help people.
Obviously I built my reputation on, you know, I think early on I was doing a lot of innovation in, you know, my practices with training. But I’m, I’m a big business guy. Like, I am not gonna lie, I like making money. I mean, that’s why I spend half my day, day trading for Christ’s sakes. Like, it’s like, it’s all it is, right?
So, um, I like, I like running a profitable business. I like having a comfortable income and a comfortable savings. I’m, you know, in that like, whatever it’s called, like has low’s, hierarchy of needs or something like that. I forgot the person’s name. Um, but one of ’em is security. Like, that’s me. Financial security is really, really important to me.
So like living month to month is not an acceptable situation for me in any way. And so when a trainer comes to me and they’re like, I. Okay, I think I can hire you and like I’m cheap, honestly, for a lot of, like, compared to a lot of business coaches, because I do this ’cause I want to, I’m, I’m in a comfortable place in my life financially.
Um, and, and they’re, they’re like, I, I wanna do this, but I have to like, make a couple sales first before I have the money. I’m like, oh my God, you need me so bad. Like, you should not be in that situation as a dog trainer. Like you just shouldn’t. Um, it’s, it’s, I don’t wanna say it’s not hard, but there, there, there are some really like low hanging fruit items that a lot of these folks that come to me that they’re struggling with, you know, for, for that income, you know, that, that good cash flow where I can just look at it and be like, okay, there are some easy things we can hit here that’s not gonna cost you, it’s good.
Not gonna take a lot of work, but I know can start to move this needle in the right direction so that you can get to a more comfortable place. Because what I want for my clients, a if you’re not bringing home minimum six figures, we’ve got, we’ve gotta do something like that’s a bare minimum goal for any trainer that I’m working with.
And that’s not a matter of greed. Like honestly today. If you’re not making six figures, like you’re, you’re not, you’re having a hard time like this. Inflation is a, is a real thing, but also dog training’s hard. Man. This is a hard gig. I know a lot of people get into it. They’re like, I wanna play with puppies all day.
And they then become a dog trade. But like, at the end of the day, you realize really quickly, this is hard. The hours are hard, it’s emotionally really difficult. You’re taking on a lot of stress for your clients. Um, you know, it’s a difficult, difficult job. Um, so I do like getting people to that comfortable place, but I also really like making sure that the cash flow is enough that people are saving for retirement.
It, it makes me nervous. I see a lot of my peers, I’m 42 years old, I see a lot of my peers that have, that have not thought about that at all. Um, whether or not we can even count on things like social security is like a whole different conversation. But even if we can, that’s not a lot of money. Um, social security, like barely pays for anything and I.
You know, the clock’s kind of ticking. So I really like to make sure if you’re running a business, like cashflow is important, it’s not a matter of being greedy. So I look at these low hanging fruit items. I wanna get people to the point where they’re making good money. Yes, I also love helping people with their dog training, but I really, it’s very rewarding for me when I can help a dog trainer who’s like, they come to me and they’re like, man, like business is not good.
And I’m like, dude, I could see obvious things here. And that’s good news. What’s, what’s the tough cases, which almost never happens, is if somebody comes, they say, Hey, business is struggling. And I look at everything they’re doing and I’m going like, I don’t understand why your business is struggling.
You’re doing everything right. Like, usually there’s just these glaring blind spots because nobody’s taught them. People don’t get into, like, people don’t go and get an MBA or a marketing degree and then become a dog trainer. Some do. Um, but most people, they have no experience with this stuff. I had to learn on my own through experience.
Um, but I wanna get those low hanging fruit items. And that’s the kinda stuff, it’s, it’s like quick tweaks to the website, quick tweaks to your strategy, just making sure you’re operating in a, in a way that makes sense for your current economic situation. Um, and so that’s the big frustration right now is honestly, uh, I would say when I first sold my business 2022, where like inflation just started, most of my clients were like, Hey, I wanna, I wanna get better with aggression.
I wanna get better with reactivity. Now almost everybody’s coming to me because they’re struggling financially and they’re looking to increase their income. And it’s honestly just as rewarding for me because, um, it’s stressful. It’s a hard job to do, and it’s even harder if you’re worried about, about cash flow.
It’s really hard to make good choices and to enjoy what you’re doing, um, and to be present with your family and everything else when, when the cash flow is not there. So, um, yeah, I’m, I’m pretty big on those things.
Awesome. Lot of, lot of good info there.
Yeah. Sorry, I’m like a fire hose, like you asked one question. No, I’m just like, it kinda all comes out, you
know, I think people are gonna enjoy this episode, listening to it and getting some motivation to a kick in the pants to,
to get better. Yeah, you can do it, man.
Like I said, like that’s the good news is that for every person that’s out there that’s like, Hey, I’m struggling. Like, I’m also talking to dog trainers that are like, Hey, I’m thriving, I’m looking to expand and I just need help, you know, finding the right property or doing my financial projections so I can get them to the bank.
And so if, if there’s people out there that are thriving, like you could be thriving too. And my advantage is I’ve peeked behind the curtains of those businesses so I know what they’re doing. Right. I know what’s making them thrive and if they can do it, so can you.
Awesome. Well, I think you’ve got another call coming up, I believe, right? We need to up pretty soon. I do, yeah. I’ve
actually got a, a new client meeting coming up, so, yeah,
well you should just get them on the podcast here. It’ll be like a wide stream. People can see what you’re doing. That’d be amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is a startup. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a woman who’s actually just, uh, it just getting her feet off the ground. So those are fun too. Again, I’ve got clients that have, like, they’re in this for 10, 20 years trying to, trying to boost things up. Um, but I’ve got a few folks right now like this that are like, Hey, I’m like almost ready to launch and I wanna make sure I’m doing it right.
And those are, those are great situations. ’cause we can usually give people like a really good jumpstart, save them a lot of time and energy.
Well tell her to start listening to Dog Pro Radio to get her dog training knowledge. It’s real. I’ll make sure. I’m sure she’s
an ICP member too. That’ll be the start she needs.
Absolutely, man. Well, I really appreciate you guys having me on. This has been a lot of fun and letting me, likewise, I, letting me do my verbal diarrhea, uh, as
I want to do so, yeah. Hey, I made it the whole episode without calling you Sweet Tea. So I think doing well.
All right. Yeah, actually, so I, I was joking around, you know, before this ’cause my, I don’t even know, I don’t even remember when that got there.
Um, but Sweet Tea is my little nickname on here. Uh, it’s actually my, my handle on Discord in some day trading groups that I’m in. But the full name is actually Sweet Tea. The Terrible as, uh, sort of like a medieval kind of, kind of twist to it. Yeah. Oh, that would’ve funny
file on my face if that showed up.
It used to be
T Money, the Merciful, and then we switched it to Sweet Tea the Terrible. So that’s the, that’s the full, that’s the full nickname. Yeah.
Sweet T The Terrible Yeah.
Sound like, sound like doodle names.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that’s
not man, you guys,
you guys
are trash talking doodles over here. But my little,
I told you before, before we started, if doodles didn’t exist, I don’t know what I would do for a living.
That’s three quarters of what I train are doodles and the other quarter are Frenchies.
Yeah. Well, your job must be super easy.
Awesome. Well thank you Tyler. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. It’s been a been time. Alright, take care.